Arabic

SYNOPSIS
1947 Cairo. Washerwoman Lavandiere dreams of escaping reality through movies. A charming organ grinder offers excitement, but a cholera outbreak threatens her son. Desperate, she fights to save him.Read More »

Quote:
What is it that is so controversial about Islam that more than a few people get antsy whenever said religion is brought up as a topic of conversation? It is actually more violent than other religions? Is there something else about, something specific, that rubs outsiders the wrong way? It seems strange considering that an immense portion of Earth’s inhabitants adhere to its teachings, about one quarter to be precise. How can so many people be wrong, or be practicing the ‘wrong religion?’ Be that as it may, the fact remains that, in this early 21st century, the world’s population is keeping a keen eye on Islam in all its depictions, and not always for the most enviable of reasons. Read More »

Peter Bradshaw wrote:
In an audacious move, director Kaouther Ben Hania reconstructs the killing of the five-year-old in Gaza using her real voice as she is bombarded by the Israeli army.

There can be no doubt about which movie has set the Venice film festival ablaze – it is this one, from Tunisian film-maker Kaouther Ben Hania. The Voice of Hind Rajab is about the horrifying ordeal of the five-year-old Palestinian girl Hind Rajab, who was killed in 2024 by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) in Gaza in her uncle’s car along with six family members, and two paramedics who tried to come to her rescue. Rajab herself, who survived the original assault by the IDF which killed those around her, stayed on the phone for hours to the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS), desperately begging for help.Read More »

The Plot:
The film is set around 1914 when Lebanon was under the Ottoman Empire rule. The empire enslaved men to work for free. Abdou goes to get Adla the engagement ring but he’s arrested with others and are taken to cut lumber. Meanwhile the Ottomans prevent the wheat from arriving to certain villages because they want to defuse the ongoing resistance operations led by Abou Ahmed. Adla travels to where some say Abdou is held prisoner and she meets with Abou Ahmed. She along other villagers start helping the resistance get the wheat to the people. When they accomplish their mission, Abou Ahmed, freed Abdou and others escape because now they’re wanted, but on a promise to return and to continue fighting.Read More »

Plot:A new swimming pool opens in a Cairo district, with the announcement that Sundays will be only for females. This causes ripples throughout the local community, while three women – Shamiya, Azza, and Lula – assess their varying lives.Read More »

“Sensual Performances, excellent acting and the great Arabic music only add to the film’s garden of earthly delights.”
– Flaunt Magazine

A widowed Tunisian seamstress takes an unlikely journey of self-discovery in writer- director Raja Amari’s sumptuous and sensual Satin Rouge. While investigating a suspected liaison between her headstrong teenaged daughter and a cabaret musician, young widow Lilia becomes drawn to an exotic nightclub netherworld of Rubénesque belly dancers and nocturnal pleasure- seekers. She strikes up a friendship with one of the dancers, then eventually takes the stage herself-quickly becoming the favorite of both cabaret patrons and the club’s hot-blooded drummer. As she gradually sheds her shapeless, matronly housedresses for the flamboyantly sequined bar-girl garb, she also begins to emerge from her cocoon of melancholy and loneliness.Read More »

Synopsis
In this panoramic family drama by Oscar-nominated Palestinian director Scandar Copti, personal quests, poor choices, and social pressures test cherished relationships, both well-worn and blooming.Read More »

Atris grows up to take after his tyrannical and cruel grandfather. As he forces his control on the people of the Dahashna village, his childhood sweetheart, Fo’ada refuses to marry him due to his growing brutality. Despite her rejection, Atris asks her father for her hand in marriage.Read More »

Quote:
Beirut, Lebanon. An impossible love story between an Ethiopian housemaid and a Syrian refugee whose body is witnessing mysterious changes.Read More »